Magazine | Together in OK

Phillip and Fiawna: Together in Tulsa

Posted 02.18.12

“I was blown away,” Phillip recalls the first day he met Fiawna at the now-closed record store, Mooch and Burn. “I had no idea where she came from.”

Packed in the back of the 15th and Harvard venue, which was the size of most people’s bathrooms, Phillip had no choice but to stay and watch the next band, fronted by Fiawna.

“The first thing I noticed when she started playing was the raw energy,” Phillip recalls, “She had a smoky voice, but powerful.”

“He looks like Frankenstein,” laughs Fiawna, “almost like a giant stomping on the ground.”

Phillip went home and looked for her music online, read her bio and found the details of her next show. He then rounded up a group of friends to hear Fiawna sing at Nordaggio’s Coffee Shop on Lewis Avenue.

“I just thought he was one of those guys,” Fiawna said about their first encounter. “But then he came back to the next show and brought eleven people with him. From then on out, I had this fan base that were coming to every show.”

Several shows later, Fiawna’s bass player moved to New York, leaving the position open. Phillip already knew all of her songs for his first audition. But he could not have guessed the deeper connections he held with Fiawna. They both had parents pass away when they were young, turning to music as a way to help cope with the loss.

“When Phillip started playing, it started making it all perfect,” Fiawna said.

“When Fiawna’s singing,” Phillip states, “She’s extremely passionate and she has a huge force coming from her. It’s very intense.”

The two have been playing together in her band for the last two years.

“I had to be involved with this project, with this person, with her,” Phillip said, remembering that day at The Mooch and Burn, “I didn’t know how, but I felt like it was going to happen and it needed to happen.”
Phillip and Fiawna will be married this year, October 10, 2010.

Note: This article was originally published July 14, 2010

Support great storytelling from the middle of America

Sign up for our weekly newsletter and get

Our very best longform journalism

Sneak previews of the magazine

Special offers on This Land merchandise

Looking for a Post?

Search for or view articles

NOTE: If searching for a specific quote then use quotation marks("") around sets of words.